Yeah, I grew up with a little bit of catholisism and later studied other religions. I found Kabbalism best suited to my needs but I changed my beliefs and didnt follow it exactly. I mean shouldnt everyone beleive what they think is right not be told by other people what is right.

I mean personally if there is a heaven I wouldnt be happy there. I would feel so bad that all those people are still suffering on earth that Id want to come down again. Thats why catholisism never worked for me or other religions.

I read a book called "Becoming Like God" by Micheal Berg. I dont beleive it all instantly but I have studied it and found that most things it says are what i want. I believe things and not all because I have the free-will to choose.

What do you guys think? Do you think blindly following is good or should we search for and inside ourselves?

Depends on what you consider good is. Hellzshellz, for example, is convinced that the only good in the world is following God without question. I agree with what you think, that free will and free thought is the greatest gift one could imagine. Although I'm not sure how I see good and evil.

I studied the basic tenets ( I'm talking about morals, not the belief in God, I lack that belief ) of most major religions, and there are always points with which I disagree, so I can't call myself christian, muslim, jewish or whatever common name people are used to.

[This message has been edited by Dre Crabbe (edited 03-15-2006).]

Blindly following isn't bad as long as you truly believe it.

But I suppose it depends on their thoughts.

I grew up indoctrinated into Christianity and as a teenager Confronted this same question that you bring up about blindly following vs. searching things out. I chose to search and follow the leading of my heart, searching out all wisdom and the depths of my own soul. This lead me first to Gnostic Christianity, to alchemy, to rosicrutionism, then to the new age, reading the channled messages from st. germain and other ascended masters, then to enochian magic, Aleister Crowly and high Magic, Masonry, Ancient hermetic wisdom, eastern mysticism, sufism, theosophy, and Kabala, and many other occult studies. Being entirely captivated by these teachings I became gradually more certain that they were true until fully giving myself over to the will of the Spirit which was guiding me. Once I had accepted to be under full control of the Ascended masters and initiated into all the secrets of the ages, I saw what their agenda truly was. After learning the true deviant nature of all of these teachings, I slowly began working my way back to the truth, casting off every thing I had learned as a lie one by one. The most difficult for me to cast off was kababla because of my christian background. The illusion that the kabala was the secret wisdom of the the Hebrew fathers was very strong, I later came to find however that it was not God's wisdom but rather the wisdom learned through the serpent and the forbidden fruit. It was synonymus with the wisdom of ancient egypt and babylon, merely a Jewish version of the the same age old perversion known as the mysteries.

It bothers me when People reject one form of occult study for another, deceiving themselves to actually think one has a greater truth then the other, All occult studies say the exact same thing in a different way. They all say this "Partake (eat) of this wisdom (fruit) and your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God." The basic message of all mystic teaching is that we are all God. Whatever method we use to come to this conclusion is irrelevant becasue the end is the same, various forms of mysticism merely cater to various types of personality, for the bright and shiny there is the new age, white magick, kabala etc. For the dark there is satanism, chaos magick, or humanistic philosophy. They lead to the same end.

Truth is this, to Love God, the most high and creator of all things above all else, to worship him and serve him forever, because He is good and rewards those who do good. Truth is to humble yourself before God, realizing your low estate, be meek and humble, serve others and give freely of your possesions, bless those who curse you, love your enemies and those who hate you, give to those who steal from you, make yourself vulnerable to those who abuse you, live righteously, and not for selfish gain, with purity of heart. Live with a contrite heart and a broken spirit. Offer your body and spirit up as a sacrifice to God, offer your body to be tortured and crucified. Think and speak no unclean thing, dwell on what is good. Give up your own life for others, esteeming others as greater than yourself. To those who live in this manner serving and obeying the True God and his law of love, they will be blessed forever and ever, living in ecstacy in heaven.

In all of these things there is no need to gain great knowledge, to know all the secrets of the universe to find the hidden mysteries, knowing the wisdom of the ancients. There is no need to search inside yourself execpt to find and cast out any leaven (pride) which reamins in your heart. there is no need to search outside yourself except to look to God blessing him and thanking him for all things, asking for forgivness of sins, and for his grace in your life to continue in the path of righteousness.

Everything else becomes irrelevant in this light, all the knowledge and wisdom of the world becomes like dust and debris, we are all held accountable by what we know and what we have learned and seen, the more knowledge we have the more we have to be accountable for, Rather than filling up on knowledge to satisfy our hunger for truth, we must eat of the bread of life and drink of the living waters which lead to life everlasting. Being full on this food we will be able to judge for ourselves all of the wisdom of this world and dicsern having true wisdom what is true and what is false.

If you hear truth and judge it to be false you will be held accountable and suffer for your comdemning what is pure (your slaying of the innocent). If you hear a lie and judge it to be true you will be held in bondage by the one who has deceived you, being unable to escape from his torments, and slavery.

In all of my studies I found one thing to be most fitting with the law of Love and the practice of truth, What I found was the Life, the words, the Death and the Resurection of God's holy One the Christ. For in this gospel we are called to be humble and serve God. To Love and serve others, treating them with all goodness of intention regardless of their intention toward us. We are called to die to ourselves suffering for what is good rather than living pleasurably by what is evil. We are called to give freely, and to become like little children, having great faith, rejecting pride. We are called to live by faith and not by sight.

It is the most difficult thing in the world to love God and others in action and in truth. It takes every ounce of our energy and every facet of our mind to acheive this state of life. Many will distract you with great words of wisdom and knowledge, speaking enticing words that scratch your itching ears. All these things make you think you are becoming wise like God when in truth you are becoming a fool, trading what is pure for a counterfit.

Erase your mind and begin a fresh search for truth begining at the begining, make your foundation on the principle of truth, everlasting love, and judge all that you hear by that standard whether it is puffing you up in your own wisdom or turning you to selflessness and the exaltation of our God who is the Begining and end and the fullness of all goodness.

To answer your question, blindly following is good if you are following the Truth, that way our sight will not distract us having running after shimmering objects. Truth can only be followed by faith through the heart and spirit.

If we search for and inside ourselves for Truth we will never find it. If we search inside ourselves for sin and pride will find it in abundance. If we repent of it and wash it from us We've done well.

"Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all else will added unto you."

"Seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you."

"Love God with your heart mind soul and strength, love your neighbor as yourself."



God's annoited spoke what is True and that alone, follow him.

Bless you, friend.

Wow. Could you be any more confused and misguided?

In particular, you say "for the dark there is... humanistic philosophy."

Explain, because as stands, I completely disagree.

My apollogies, I shouldn't have lumped all humanistic philosophy into the "dark" section since there are many humanistic philosopheers who honestly desire to do good and reach some utopian existance, much like the newagers, to clarify, I more so had atheism in mind, I'm not sure of all the various branches of humanistic philosophy, but much of it seems influenced by atheism. I consider philosophies revolving around some sort of God figure or Pure Light or energy figure to be of the "light" side, and those Philosophies which revolve around humanity alone to be "dark." In my mind I associate humanism in general with being dark because whether blatently or not it puts man in a place above God. I appollogize if I have offended you by my categorization, I am willing to recatergorize humanistic philosophy as a "light side" belief if you think it's appropriate, it doesn't make much difference to me.

Other than a few insignifigant, improper categorizations and perhaps some flaws in my use of the english language, I found what I said to be focused on the right goal, which is to Love more and more fully. I'm trying very hard to go in the right direction with a good and faithful guide, and I'm also trying to eliminate confusion from my mind, both of these tasks are difficult. If you are on the right path and have a clearer mind than I, please help me find my way, thank you.

go fuck yourself.

I was born and raised catholic and went to a catholic school my whole life, and from what i understand is that God has a good plan for you in your life, but he gave us the free-will to accpect it or not, or even change it. Following Gods plan is suppose to give you a good life (not saying you'll be a millionare and having all material itemes you want) but you will be happy. Most of the plan changes because of your free-will you did something that the plan had to be alterd. Catholics say that if you deny god then your living a life of sin. But in the Catholic faith god is all forgiving and will forgive you no matter what you did as long as you are truly sorry for it.

I don't follow the catholic faith exactly. I don't go to church. but from what i have read and learned the point of mass is to be with a group of people to worship, and to recive the body of Christ. Now I am very active in my churchs youth group which could take place of the mass, I just don'trecive the body christ. I live my life, doing what i think is the right thing and help people and nice ect. theres just somethings in the catholic church that i don't agree with and that are somewhat dumb.

Hmm...what a tough question.

I was raised in a strict, fundametalist Protestant household. Up until about a month ago (I'm 20 btw), I had been somewhat content with my beliefs, but had always had my doubts.

I finally concluded that not just Christianity, but all religion is wishful thinking. Not that it isn't true, but that the probability of it being true is extremely slim. Furthermore, I decided that if the Christian God were real, I wouldn't want to worship such a God who sends a majority of the souls He creates to hell. All-knowing and all-loving and the best He can do still results in the eternal suffering of billions with no second chances. Rediculous.

Furthermore, I hate the argument "atheists only disbelieve in God because they don't like the idea of having to be responsible to something greater than themselves". Bullshit. I actually like the idea of having a God. If there was a way it all worked out, I wouldn't mind worshipping a God I knew existed, knew was loving, and knew had the best interest of humanity in mind when He made us.

Unfortunately, 'faith' is not quite 'knowledge'. I don't know of such a God, and likewise, I'm not going to trust in 'feelings' or 'faith' in such a God. Why? As a kid, I had faith in Santa Claus. I had a feeling he existed, liked the idea he existed. I mean, the presents were always there Christmas morning, the cookies always ate up; Santa must have come.

But faith proves to be incorrect. Back then, I didn't know to weigh the evidence. To consider that I had never actually seen Santa. To think that, possibly, someone else may have eaten the cookies I set out and placed my presents under the tree. Instead I let my 'feelings' and wishful thinking manipulate my perception of what was really going on. I decided I wasn't going to make the same stupid assumptions again when pertaining to God.

Saphiria, it's good that you can disagree with aspects of your church while still seeing the good and not being bitter agianst it. there are a great many aspects of the catholic church (and every other denomination for that matter) that are very dumb and disagreeable. If you ever want to find out what the true faith was that was passed down from the apostles, and learn how when, where and why it went astray, I heartily recomend reading some old church history, especially the writings of the ante-nicene fathers (the church fathers before Constantines council of Nicea) you can find all of their writings on the web. I also recomend reading some books by David Bercot, he does a good job of portraying what the early church actually believed and practiced.

Well Joshua, you're asking some honest questions and no one should flame you over them. But if some things aren't right, or aren't absolute, then shouldn't we get rid of any word that denotes such? We can't say, "all," anymore. We can't say, 'true,' anymore. We can't say, 'every,' anymore. We can't even say, 'can't,' anymore. Why? Because they have no meaning if they are separate from some unending truth. Some things are true, irrespective of our personal beliefs. My gosh man, what would happen to physics if they weren't absolute? You would be dead without its exacting precision. I won't even get into the religious aspects right now. Just mull over whether or not some things have to be absolute first. We'll start there.

If you hear truth and judge it to be false you will be held accountable and suffer for your comdemning what is pure (your slaying of the innocent). If you hear a lie and judge it to be true you will be held in bondage by the one who has deceived you, being unable to escape from his torments, and slavery.

In all of my studies I found one thing to be most fitting with the law of Love and the practice of truth, What I found was the Life, the words, the Death and the Resurection of God's holy One the Christ. For in this gospel we are called to be humble and serve God. To Love and serve others, treating them with all goodness of intention regardless of their intention toward us. We are called to die to ourselves suffering for what is good rather than living pleasurably by what is evil. We are called to give freely, and to become like little children, having great faith, rejecting pride. We are called to live by faith and not by sight.

It is the most difficult thing in the world to love God and others in action and in truth. It takes every ounce of our energy and every facet of our mind to acheive this state of life. Many will distract you with great words of wisdom and knowledge, speaking enticing words that scratch your itching ears. All these things make you think you are becoming wise like God when in truth you are becoming a fool, trading what is pure for a counterfit.

Joshua, perhaps you are too close to your own thoughts to see another perspective. Just from your post, allow me to give an answer to what I see from you, based only on your post. It seems to me, that you like the thought of mystery. All of the 'religions' you posted, have some element of intrigue to them. Its almost as if you are parting ways with the major religions only because they don't seem esoteric enough for you. Its almost as if you prefer to be the enlightened one, and so, make yourself a sectarian to that 'special knowledge,' as if you want to be the keeper of it, and to have others asking you all the questions. From my own journey of introspection, I've discovered that if you're focusing on the self to derive some sort of meaning that transcends yourself, you won't find it. You will continue to grope in darkness. Now, I'm a Christian, but I was not raised as one. I came to it when I was about 24 after much searching. I'm not going to give you some spin, or rehash on something you've heard a million times growing up. Just allow me to say that the answers you are looking for won't be found in yourself, and you can't master yourself enough to understand things that are beyond your control. If you haven't done so already, I implore you to read Ecclesiastes which focuses on the very questions you pose. If you have read it, read it again. The awesome thing about Scripture is that it makes no sense without some personal struggle of our own. That is what makes it all the more real. Reading about going through dark and dismal times does nothing for you to relate to these times, unless you can sympathize with them. That's why children can't relate. They have not experienced this level of suffering, which is critical to your growth. They are protected by their innocence. But you have felt the sting of reality, and its almost as if everything you thought was reality is just a facade. Anyone over the age of, say, 15, can relate. The Scriptures allow for that because we have all gone through these turbulent times, and therefore, we can relate to the author. So if you ever feel like you are unique to certain situations, or that you are asking unique questions, you aren't. And that isn't meant to demoralize you, its meant to edify you. We all go through this period... And to a great extent, it will be a course that you must walk through the term of your natural life. All I know for certain is, 'There is no rest for the wicked.' If you want peace, a peace that has nothing to do with circumstances, then you are going to have to find a purpose that exceeds who you are as a person -that exceeds what your mind is fully capable of comprehending. Joshua, in the end, we are like vapor that is here today, but tomorrow is burned away.... And even the memory of us will pass from reality. Only God remains. Therefore, you must become apart of God by becoming His child. If there were any other way, I would tell you.

Hope that helps... You'll be in my prayers Joshua.

Some things must definately be absolute, the laws of physics being a fine example. I agree with what you're saying but I'm sorry because I'm not fully understanding what the the point is that you are getting at, please explain a little more for me. I'm not sure if this is related to what you're getting at but an interesting thought popped into my mind when you said:

"We can't say, "all," anymore. We can't say, 'true,' anymore. We can't say, 'every,' anymore. We can't even say, 'can't,' anymore. Why? Because they have no meaning if they are separate from some unending truth."

It made me think of ordering a pizza and saying "I want everything on it." If the person taking your order didn't know what you meant by everything you could go on for enternity trying to explain what you mean, even if you list out specifically all of the toppings that you want you could still be given something entirely different than you intended because you were not specific enough, say if you said you wanted pepperoni, you could find a whole pepperoni log still in it's plastic wrapper sitting on top of your pizza. You never asked specifically for it to be sliced.

This reminds me of our legal system, no matter how long and laboriously detailed a legal document is, there will always be loopholes and true justice will never be acheived through the written code.

This makes me think that what is much more important than words are intentions. Intentions can be argued over also, but if there is anything that is absolute, there must be some measure by which we can judge the intentions of the heart. I suggest it is by our willingness to sacrifice ourselves for others. Likewise whatever claim of absolute truth exemplifies this principle that I will believe.

Sorry about the tangent, I don't want to steer away from your point, just wanted to throw in a liitle thought that I had. Please do explain a little further the point you are making. I may have a philosophers heart but my mind is very simple, and sometimes takes a little more explaining to wrap around something, thanks for bearing with me.

I just quickly read your other reply hyroglyphx, thank you, what you said is very sound and accurate, I'd like to read over it again and then reply in more detail but righ tnow I have to go to work, thanks.

hyroglyphx, I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said in your last post I'm only a little bit confused about why you are saying some of these things to me. That isn't to say I don't appriciate it or that I havn't been edified. I am wondering why you stressed the importance of not searching inside yourself for truth, when I had Made it clear in my post that that was exactly how I felt, saying in one place regarding the search for truth:

"There is no need to search inside yourself execpt to find and cast out any leaven (pride) which reamins in your heart."

and in another place

"If we search for and inside ourselves for Truth we will never find it.

I'm not sure if you misunderstood my post or if you're calling me out for hypocracy or if you, noticing my introspective tendencies just want to drive home an important point that I already agree with.

It seems like you're trying to turn me to the truth when When I am already a disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ. I just want to make sure you didn't read my post quickly and misundertstand me. If however you did understand me perfectly clear I appriciate your exhortation to me to truly follow those very things I profess, I've thoughtfully considered your sayings and have been convicted in my heart to make an even greater effort to blot out my pride and desire to have some special knowledge or be some sort of guru. It was indeed this desire that sucked me into the occult, and I truly detest it and appriciate your warnings against it as my heart can never be told too many times to abandon those things and adhere to the truth.

It turns out Ecclesiastes was for a long time my very favourite book of the Bible. One verse that helped me out of the occult snare was this one:

Ecc 8:17 "Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labour to seek [it] out, yet he shall not find [it]; yea further; though a wise [man] think to know [it], yet shall he not be able to find [it]."

The wisdom of this book is simple, yet at the same time mindbending. I read it many times through about a year ago but lately I've been avoiding it because alot of what Solomon says seems to contradict the words and spirit of Christ. For example Christ says it's better to mourn and weep and be poor in spirit, whereas Solomon says to eat drink and be merry. It seems to me that while Solomon was exedingly wise, he didn't have the spirit of Christ in him like his father David. This understanding is probably just a result of my spiritual imaturity and mind not fully being able to understand the depths of Wisdom, but now that you've recomended I read the book again I will and hopefully some of these questions I have will be answered. Thank you again for the exhortation and for your prayers.